Hi,
It’s my understanding of prototype practice that on mountain railroads with steep grades (e.g. the D&RGW narrow gauge) that the locomotive would run in reverse, pushing the train up the grades, in order to prevent brakeaways, with the crew aboard the caboose keeping an eye on the tracks ahead. Would this mean that there were also cabooses on passenger trains, to provide these eyes ahead, or would it be done by a conductor from the rear carriage?
Thanks in advance,
tbdanny
Don’t know where you got that impression. On extremely steep grades it was best for the locomotive to be pointing uphill to keep the firebox crown covered with water. And having the locomotive at the downhill end of a train going uphill could be helpful before the time of air brakes but not otherwise.
Passenger cars have platforms, open and semi-enclosed, where crew can observe backward movements. There’s no need for having a caboose for observation.
Mark
The CNR had a few “combooses”, which were wooden combines that had cupolas added. The cars served as accommodation for both passengers and crew on some mixed trains.
Wayne
I know that in running short cuts of ore cars down into iron ore pits, the engine was normally kept on the down side of the cars (usually with the front of the engine facing the cars) so they would back down into the pit and then push the cars forward going back up. If anything like that was done on any passenger trains, it would have to have been extremely rare as I can’t remember coming across any examples. There were a few limited situations where a passenger train (i.e. a train with just passenger cars, not a mixed freight-passenger train) would have a caboose on the end, but it was pretty rare.
The N&W mixed trains on the Shenandoah Division between Roanoke, VA & Hagerstown, MD used a caboose along with a combine or coach.
Roger Huber
Hi, Stix,
Alishan Forestry Railway (Taiwan) is all 4% (or more) grade. The locomotives were on the downhill end of the upgrade train I rode to Alishan in 1970. At that time, passenger power was diesel, but there were still Shays handling outbound logs and inbound skeleton flats.
No caboose, of course. They weren’t moving a microgram of excess weight upgrade!
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
The Pennsylvania Railroad ran a lot of second class trains made up of baggage cars and express boxcars with a rider coach and a caboose bringing up the rear. This was to accomodate the rear end crew as they handled the set-outs and pick-ups listed for that run. Some of the cabooses, or “cabins” as the Pennsy men called them, were lettered for the Railway Express Agency. That’s the only regular use of cabooses on trains carrying passengers that I know of.
In general, the use of cabooses on passenger trains was rare. Backing a passenger train was fairly easy if there was a back-up hose (sometimes called a rider hose) on the hind end and the train was equipped with an air signal line (also called a communicating whistle)
Up into the 1960s the Pennsylvania used cabin cars on some New York - Washington passenger trains that carried mail storage and express cars behind the passenger cars. The conductor and the front brakeman would be ahead in the coaches and the flagman would be in the cabin behind the mail and express cars. Seems like a pretty good job for the flagman - passenger pay but no passengers to worry about.
I’ve only seen this in pictures mind you, but I saw that Alaska RR had a caboose on the end of one of the passenger trains to Whitier, is that the correct spelling?